Nerdist » Stanley Kubrickhttp://nerdist.com
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 21:00:15 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Adam Savage Made an Exact Scale Model of THE SHINING Mazehttp://nerdist.com/adam-savage-made-an-exact-scale-model-of-the-shining-maze/
http://nerdist.com/adam-savage-made-an-exact-scale-model-of-the-shining-maze/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 19:00:15 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=228606We all know that Adam Savage is probably the coolest and smartest fellow alive, right? Not only is he one of the hosts of the hugely popular and informational MythBusters program over there on the Discovery Channel, he’s a massive fan of movies. Like any good geek, when he loves something, he likes to express that love.

His latest build plays into his love and obsession with Stanley Kubrick (to which I can completely relate) and one particular Kubrick film he didn’t want to…OVERLOOK…ha ha ha. I’m speaking, of course, about the maestro’s 1980 horror classic The Shining. As you can hear in the video below, Adam became obsessed with the terrifying and seemingly unsolvable maze in the film after visiting the awesome Kubrick exhibit that was at LACMA in 2012-2013. Savage has since traveled around and discovered that the scale model they had was not even close to correct. That’s all Adam needed to begin to figure out exactly what Jack Torrance was looking at.

Just like the one in the film, Adam built his maze at O Scale, which means 1/48th-1/50th size, and from there it was simply a matter of getting all of the various twists and turns correct.

]]>http://nerdist.com/adam-savage-made-an-exact-scale-model-of-the-shining-maze/feed/4Schlock & Awe: THE SHININGhttp://nerdist.com/schlock-awe-the-shining/
http://nerdist.com/schlock-awe-the-shining/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 23:00:09 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=227850Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is a film intricately constructed to optimize the viewer’s sense of dread. The cinematography, editing, sound, and music are all established from the outset to imply foreboding and doom. Kubrick employs numerous innovative filmmaking techniques to convey that the small family is, indeed, not alone in the enormous hotel, but are alone with the enormous hotel. If one pays close enough attention, they will see that the Overlook itself is the omnipresent character whose point of view we take much of the time.

From the very start, the ominous opening score cues us that something is definitely not right. The helicopter shots of the Colorado Mountains coupled with the dark music leads us to believe some other-worldly force is already orchestrating events. Perhaps this can be seen as Kubrick himself, but not long into the film we get the sense other things are at work.

One of the hardest things for any filmmaker to make interesting is a scene of exposition. The Shining has a large amount of important introductory material that needs to be explained before anything scary can really happen. The first scene is of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) having an interview where we get the explanation that the previous caretaker of the hotel, Delbert Grady, slaughtered his family during the long winter overseeing the massive grounds.

The following scene is of Jack’s wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), at home. In it, we learn both of Danny’s “imaginary” friend, Tony, and of his clairvoyance. While talking with Tony, he sees flashes of the horror to come, including the ghostly twins and an elevator full of blood. Then in a subsequent scene, after a doctor comes to check out Danny after he passes out, Wendy tells her Jack has once gotten into a rage and dislocated Danny’s arm, forcing him, eventually, to give up alcohol.

This is a huge amount of information, both for plot purposes and for character development. Kubrick does an interesting thing in all of these scenes which is he shoots them in master, meaning, for the most part, it is a wide shot where all of the characters can be seen at once. Occasionally he’ll cut in for a close up or reaction shot, but generally speaking, these scenes are wide. He also doesn’t move the camera at all during these scenes, which does occur quite a bit later on. Essentially, he makes these scenes as boring to look at as possible which forces us to listen to the expository material as well as contrasts the eeriness that is to quickly follow. The actors also play everything as over-the-top pleasant as possible, even when speaking about awful events, such as Grady killing his family. One expects Jack to say “gee whiz” as he listens. This, too, gives the impression that these are Leave it to Beaver-like Americans, average and unassuming. They are so normal, in fact, that it becomes itself unsettling, even more so knowing the kind of film that we’re watching.

The bulk of the film takes place at the Overlook Hotel and the more time the characters spend there, the less at ease they, and we, are about the place. However, if one truly pays attention to the cinematography, they can see that Kubrick has immediately set up the surroundings as an ever-present and malevolent force. First off, the hotel’s massive rooms take up 90% of the frame with the actors inhabiting only the bottom portion. They are almost always very far from the camera and are given a great deal of headroom in the frame. This lets us know that they are not merely living in the hotel; the Overlook is engulfing them, surrounding them. It speaks to the characters’ utter isolation from the outside world as they are often literally alone with nothing but this enormous, empty building.

The kinds of shots used when in the hotel are also very telling. For the most part, characters walking through the hallways are shown either using a dolly track, or using a steadicam, which at the time was a very new invention. The fact that these shots are always moving, when the earlier scenes are stationary, subtly hints that the hotel, or an entity within it, is present and watching or following them. This can be seen almost immediately when the Torrances arrive.

There is a conversation that takes place between Jack, Wendy, and Mr. Ullman (Barry Nelson) as he tells the couple all about the hotel. They walk around the massive central staircase and make their way into the kitchen. Most films, especially ones employing a steadicam operator, would have followed up close to the action, but Kubrick chooses to film it using a camera on a dolly on the complete opposite side of the room. The camera tracks right to left as the characters walk behind the stairs, turn, then walk toward camera to go into the kitchen.

It’s almost as though the walls of the hotel itself were watching them.

The steadicam is also used to great effect both stylistically and narratively. Anytime Danny is riding his big-wheel tricycle around the massive hallways, the camera is following quite closely behind him, very near the ground. It’s as though the spirits are following the child, almost pushing him towards the terrifying things he will soon discover. In contrast, anytime Jack is walking down the hallways, the steadicam is in front of him moving backward, allowing him to find the various rooms, i.e. the ballroom, where he comes in contact with the spirits. It’s a subtle change, but it implies that Danny is exploring uncharted territory while Jack knows exactly where to go, something that lends itself to the film’s ultimate reveal.

Towards the end of the film, when Jack has finally succumbed to the power of the hotel, we start getting snap zooms on strange and disturbing images. It begins with Danny, in a trance-like state, writing on the door the word “Redrum,” which he then repeats loudly. As his mother tries to calm him, she sees the word in the mirror reflect to read “Murder.” The camera snap-zooms on Wendy’s shocked face and cuts and snap-zooms on the word. Later, as Wendy runs, arms-flailing, through the hotel, she comes across the ghosts, finally showing themselves. Each time she sees a new ghost, the camera snap-zooms inward so the audience gets a good look at the ghastly figures.

Another technique employed to great effect here is the use of hard edits or cuts. Almost always, when Danny gets a vision of something horrifying, it is depicted via a frame or two inserted. The effect is harsh and jarring, which is exactly what it should be. This amount of seemingly disconnected images strung together in sequence tells Danny and the audience exactly what they need to know. Also thrown in are title cards generally saying what day it is. No other context is given for the day, like the month or the actual date, but several times, to show the passing of time in a dreamlike manor, a black card with white lettering will appear proclaiming the day. At one point, a scene prefaced by the card “Tuesday” is followed by one reading “Monday.” This shows us that the passage of days is so utterly meaningless in the isolation of the hotel that it’s impossible to tell what day it is at any given moment. Also, one title reads “4pm,” again without the knowledge of what day or date the 4pm is attached.

Finally, the music in the film is really the “voice” of the Overlook. Like his other films, Kubrick uses mainly existing pieces of classical and contemporary art music, though Wendy Carlos and Rachel Ekland did compose original pieces as well. Each of these music cues is haunting or unsettling in its own right, but coupled with the images, they become like the whale song of this evil building. A specific scene from the middle of the film shows a deranged-looking Jack staring out the window with a big, maniacal grin on his face. This image, which slowly zooms in on him, is accompanied by Gyorgy Ligeti’s eerie tones, which employ hums and whines as well as human vocal sounds.

It is this mixture of the mechanical/industrial and the organic that conveys, with no onscreen action, that Jack and the hotel are beginning to become one. Similar music of Ligeti’s is used during scenes in Kubrick’s earlier 2001: A Space Odyssey to imply the presence of the extraterrestrials.

The climactic final 20 minutes, beginning with the “Redrum” reveal is where the slow, methodical pace of the film up to that point completely gives way to frenetic, grueling horror. From this point forward, at each of the aforementioned snap-zooms, or anytime a slow moment breaks into a burst of movement, the music hits a certain cue. It’s similar to Bernard Hermann’s “shower scene” music in Hitchcock’s Psycho, but here it sounds like grinding metal gears. Again, this noise implies the sound of the hotel’s dark bowels eager to collect a new set of spirits.

The Shining is a great achievement in Stanley Kubrick’s career and, I believe, his last purely “Kubrickian” effort. What makes the film such an achievement is that, aside from small things, there are no “special effects” shots, which is to say all the horror conveyed onscreen is done through camera tricks, sound cues, editing, and actor performance. For someone who won his only Oscar for special effects, Kubrick was completely prepared to use none on a project most would assume would be wrought with them. Using nothing more than the power of his camera and the strength of his vision, Stanley Kubrick was able to make a seemingly benign vacation spot one of the scariest places in movie history.

]]>http://nerdist.com/schlock-awe-the-shining/feed/0The Reissue Trailer for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is an Odyssey By Itselfhttp://nerdist.com/the-reissue-trailer-for-2001-a-space-odyssey-is-an-odyssey-by-itself/
http://nerdist.com/the-reissue-trailer-for-2001-a-space-odyssey-is-an-odyssey-by-itself/#commentsThu, 23 Oct 2014 02:00:37 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=194327If anything can be said for Stanley Kubrick, it’s that he was a perfectionist. Every single movie he made (and he only made 13 feature films in his 46 year career) was the pinnacle of technical excellence and innovation. Often, the critics have said, this was at the cost of engaging narrative and his films come across as sterile and antiseptic, but that doesn’t discount his mastery of the moving image and the ability to make people wonder. No film in his catalog is a bigger example of this than what I and many others would argue is his masterpiece, 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that revolutionized the science fiction genre, both in terms of effects and story.

It’s no secret that I love 2001, and I wrote a whole big essay about it last year, but each and every time I watch it, or even a clip of it, I’m filled with the sense of awe and majesty that putting classical music underneath images of space travel seems to evoke. This is why, if you ever get the chance, you should see this film in a cinema, on the largest screen possible. Revival houses will show this at least once a year, so it’s not that hard to find, but if you happen to live in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the BFI is screening it in dozens of cities beginning in November. And in order to hype it, they’ve made this gorgeous trailer which perfectly encapsulates why this film is special, in the span of only 2 minutes.

It’s a movie that’s philosophically rich, haunting in its execution, and an absolutely transformative experience on the big screen. This trailer makes me want to dive into it all over again, as I hope it does you. If you can get to the BFI to see this, or to any theater that might be screening it some evening, it really is something worth your time. For now, I’m just going to throw on Richard Strauss’ “The Beautiful Blue Danube” and pretend I’m floating around my apartment.

]]>http://nerdist.com/the-reissue-trailer-for-2001-a-space-odyssey-is-an-odyssey-by-itself/feed/7Spoke Art’s Kubrick: A Tribute Show Invades San Franciscohttp://nerdist.com/spoke-arts-kubrick-a-tribute-show-invades-san-francisco/
http://nerdist.com/spoke-arts-kubrick-a-tribute-show-invades-san-francisco/#commentsFri, 05 Sep 2014 21:30:49 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=179835Recently, artist Brandon Bird took at look at the now ubiquitous group pop art show. You know the kind – we’ve featured them here: gallery events that spotlight a particular piece of pop culture courtesy of a few dozen artists who spin out their own interpretations of on canvass, in sculpture or whatever? We’ve featured a few of them before.

Essentially, Bird takes issue with the use of the word “tribute” and the limitations that sometimes places on artists who might otherwise re-purpose corporate art sans theme. It’s a fascinating read and Bird admits to being a little bit of a hypocrite himself, having hosted/curated shows based on Jurassic Park while his claim to fame are his wonderful Law & Order pieces.

This is all a very roundabout way of saying I’m fascinated and slightly conflicted by Spoke Art’s upcoming Kubrick: A Tribute Show which launches this week in San Francisco. The exhibit will use the works of famed/beloved/crazy/brilliant/obsessive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick as the basis for dozens of pieces by over 60 artists.

This doesn’t feel like the kind of highfalutin fan art that Bird was rallying against, but it’s somewhere in the ballpark, finding ways to reconfigure some of the themes and concepts of the director’s work in a pop art style. Some of his work demands this kind of obsessive reconsideration (if you haven’t seen the documentary Room 237, that should act as living proof).

]]>http://nerdist.com/spoke-arts-kubrick-a-tribute-show-invades-san-francisco/feed/1Miyazaki Joins Kubrick, Frazetta as Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame Inducteeshttp://nerdist.com/miyazaki-joins-kubrick-frazetta-as-science-fiction-and-fantasy-hall-of-fame-inductees/
http://nerdist.com/miyazaki-joins-kubrick-frazetta-as-science-fiction-and-fantasy-hall-of-fame-inductees/#commentsMon, 30 Jun 2014 18:45:09 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=162769Late last week, beloved animator Hayao Miyazaki joined a small list of creatives inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame for 2014. If Miyazaki accepts the invitation to join the 6,000 member-strong group, it would make the 73-year-old filmmaker behind Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Nausicaa Valley of the Wind eligible to cast his vote in the Academy Awards.

The Seattle-based Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame also inducted other luminaries in the genre including A Clockwork Orange and The Shining director Stanley Kubrick, illustrator Frank Frazetta, Empire Strikes Back screenwriter and novelist Leigh Brackett, and author Olaf Stapledon (The Last and First Men books).

The honor comes just on the edge of Miyazaki’s promised retirement from filmmaking. Speaking with Buzzfeed earlier this year, he explained why it was time for him to call it quits:

“I really felt that this was the maximum that I could give to produce an animated film,” he said. “The work of animation is building up bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar. I felt I wouldn’t be able to put [up] another brick.”

His latest, The Wind Rises, was nominated for an Academy Award. That film was a fantasized chronicle of the life of engineer Jirô Horikoshi, creator of the Zero Bomber in the lead up to World War II. While it picked up a few awards, it’s possible that some of the controversy surrounding the sentimentalizing of someone who contributed to the Axis war effort might have put off Academy voters. I mean, they would have been wrong: the film was perfect, treading a fine line between sentiment and acknowledgment that the impulse to create can sometimes happen in messy, complicated, or downright evil circumstances.

]]>http://nerdist.com/miyazaki-joins-kubrick-frazetta-as-science-fiction-and-fantasy-hall-of-fame-inductees/feed/1The Black List Presents Live Reading of Kubrick Scripthttp://nerdist.com/the-black-list-presents-live-script-reading-of-kubrick-script/
http://nerdist.com/the-black-list-presents-live-script-reading-of-kubrick-script/#commentsSat, 31 May 2014 22:00:46 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=153364Every year, The Black List publishes its list of the best unproduced screenplays making the Hollywood rounds that year, based on a survey from over 100 industry development executives. Since 2005, over 225 of those scripts have eventually been made into films earning over $19 billion worldwide and winning 35 Academy Awards. Some of these include Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, and Argo. Despite its name, The Black List is one of the most prestigious in film.

This year, another script can be added to the list of those mounted, but not in the way you’d normally think. Stephany Folsom’s 2013 Black Listed script 1969: A Space Odyssey, or How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon will be done as a staged reading at the Los Angeles Theatre for their first Black List Live event.

The script is the fictionalized account of a White House public affairs assistant who hires filmmaker Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing just in case of technical issues during the now world famous one small step. To assay the various roles, the Black List has announced four prestigious cast members thus far. Kathryn Hahn (Bad Words, a million comedy films) will play the White House assistant; Jared Harris (Mad Men) will play Kubrick; Thomas Sadoski (The Newsroom) will play legendary NASA public affairs administrator Julian Scheer; and Shannon Woodward (Raising Hope) will play Kubrick’s assistant Kara Downs.

The Black List’s co-founder Franklin Leonard had this to say of the event in the press release: “Our mission with the Black List has always been celebrating great screenwriting and the writers who do it, and presenting this script to an audience with actors like Kathryn, Jared, Thomas, and Shannon gives us an extraordinary opportunity to continue that mission in a very exciting way.”

This is easily one of the most unique story ideas we’ve heard about in a long time and the chance to get to see it in some fashion is pretty amazing. Can’t wait to see what other live readings the Black List will stage.

]]>http://nerdist.com/the-black-list-presents-live-script-reading-of-kubrick-script/feed/1Rumor: Alfonso Cuarón Offered THE SHINING Prequel OVERLOOK HOTELhttp://nerdist.com/rumor-alfonso-cuaron-offered-the-shining-prequel-overlook-hotel/
http://nerdist.com/rumor-alfonso-cuaron-offered-the-shining-prequel-overlook-hotel/#commentsFri, 23 May 2014 00:30:04 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=151077Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is simply one of the greatest horror films ever made. Much like horror classics The Exorcist and Jaws, it’s a film that should never, ever be remade, because why would you? Sadly, it already was kind of remade, in a cheap television version in the mid nineties. Which yes, was closer to Stephen King’s original novel, but still totally sucked. But being a TV version I can kind of ignore its existence and delete it from my memory banks like I recently did with the television version of Rosemary’s Baby.

Last year it was announced that Warner Bros was instead planning a prequel to Kubrick’s film called Overlook Hotel, and that former Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara had been hired to write the script. And we hadn’t heard anything else about the project until now, as the guys at the Schmoes Know claim that Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón is who the studio wants to direct. This comes hot on the heels of another rumor that says the studio wants him to direct the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.

The question now is, coming off a powerhouse film like Gravity, would Cuarón want to go back and make prequels to other people’s films? Hasn’t Gravity given him license to go off and do whatever he wants now? Well, unless whatever he wants to do next is a small budget film, probably not. Warner Bros is a studio that loves being in business with certain creative types — Christopher Nolan is a perfect example. Rumor has it that Inception was greenlit partially on the promise that he would return to complete his Dark Knight trilogy, which he did. If Cuarón wants to make another potentially risky big budget tentpole that’s (gasp!) not based on an existing property, Warner Bros might first nail him down to get either Overlook Hotel or Fantastic Beasts off the ground.

So just what would Overlook Hotel be about anyway? Would the movie focus on the Delbert Grady, the caretaker who killed his own family (including those creepy-ass twins), a decade before Jack Torrance got the job? Or could it be a totally different storyline? The Grady story would almost be beat-for-beat the same story as Jack Torrance’s, so there might be a feeling of “been there, done that” in tackling that one. I think Cuarón should make a prequel explaining just what was up with that fat dude in the bear suit who looks like he was about to orally service some old guy. Seriously, what the hell was going on in that scene?? If the prequel is all about explaining that, I’m there on day one.

]]>http://nerdist.com/rumor-alfonso-cuaron-offered-the-shining-prequel-overlook-hotel/feed/310 Movies That Take Place at Christmas For No Reasonhttp://nerdist.com/10-movies-that-take-place-at-christmas-for-no-reason/
http://nerdist.com/10-movies-that-take-place-at-christmas-for-no-reason/#commentsTue, 24 Dec 2013 21:30:32 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=102306For as many movies as are clearly “Christmas Movies,” there are quite a few others that take place during the holiday season and yet are not dubbed with the colorful moniker. Do they need to be set at Christmas? In a lot of cases, no; they really are just using the holiday as a setting or are adhering to the release date. For some reason, movies released at Christmastime are often set then as well, as though people who go to the movies in December can’t fathom a story taking place in May. At any rate, here are ten movies that take place at Christmas that maybe don’t need to. Here, they’re in chronological order.

The Thin Man (1934)

If you want snappy dialogue, this is the movie for you. William Powell and Myrna Loy play perpetually-sloshed socialites Nick and Nora Charles, who solve a murder case for seemingly no other reason than they can and are pretty good at it. Christmas is in the background through the whole thing, and Nora gets increasingly upset when people wish her a merry one. This culminates in a line in which she threatens to kill the next person to give her a season’s greeting. Not very Christmassy, there, Nora.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

More than half a decade before he was running around Marble Falls yelling about his beautiful old building-and-loan, Jimmy Stewart was in another, much less Christmas-centric Christmas movie about people working in a Hungarian department store leading up to the 25th of December. Directed by the incomparable Ernst Lubitsch, this movie is actually an earlier adaptation of the story that eventually became You’ve Got Mail, with Stewart and Margaret Sullavan despising each other at work yet falling in love through anonymous pen-pal letters.

Stalag 17 (1953)

Billy Wilder’s WWII prisoner of war comedy (with a lot of drama in it as well) is a sort of whodunnit mystery in which someone is feeding information to the Nazi command about escape attempts. Most everybody assumes it’s the defiant and lackadaisical Sefton (William Holden), but that’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? The movie takes place over the days leading up to the holiday, but the big set piece is a Christmas party in the barracks in which the prisoners are forced to slow dance with each other in lieu of any women being around. It’s a sad but also funny moment. The big reveal comes on Christmas Eve as to who the mole actually is.

The Apartment (1960)

Another one from Billy Wilder, but in a wholly different setting. This movie is also set around the holiday season in which a diligent employee (Jack Lemmon) tries to get ahead in his company by allowing the executives to use his conveniently-nearby flat for their afternoon extra-marital affairs. The scheme turns sour when the girl he’s got his eye on becomes one of his boss’ many conquests. In Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond’s typical fashion, this movie is very racy and yet somehow quite wholesome and sweet. It was a gift. This also won Best Picture that year.

Lethal Weapon (1987)

The late-’80s were rife with action movies set at Christmas (as you’ll see with the next film as well), and the first of the Mel Gibson and Danny Glover buddy-cop series starts the trend. From the opening scene of Detective Martin Riggs slapping himself in the face while interrogating perps at a Christmas tree lot to the final fistfight that takes place on a front lawn with multi-colored lights on in the background, this movie perpetually tells you you’re watching a movie set in December, even though it was released in March and totally didn’t need to have any holiday cheer in it at all.

Die Hard (1988)

Next, we come to my hands-down favorite, must-watch yearly Christmas tradition. However, there really isn’t a reason for it to be a Christmas movie, other than as an excuse to have an office building full of employees and an estranged husband come to visit. As awesome as the lines about having a machine gun ho-ho-ho and the often jingle-bellsian score are fun, this could have been set just as easily at New Years or Thanksgiving, or, like March 4th, too. The second film in the series continued the Christmas theme, but the subsequent three abandoned it entirely.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

I have a theory that the only reason Tim Burton set this movie at Christmas time is so he could have that scene of Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder dancing romantically in the scissor-shaved snow. He made a point to put the action in a cookie-cutter suburb that is usually as bright and bland as possible so that the iconic snow shots could seem all the more impressive. The poster image for the movie has Edward in front of a snowy background, and it was released in December, so clearly the marketing folks thought that playing up the snow was the way to go. And it worked; What can I say?

Batman Returns (1992)

Like Billy Wilder, Tim Burton really must enjoy Christmas and making it slightly creepy. This might be the only superhero movie to use the Most Wonderful Time of the Year as its setting, generally because these movies come out in the summer and it’s weird for it to be set in the winter. From a visual standpoint, the mixture of the snow-covered Gotham City looking dreary and yet sparkly with the lights and decorations is quite striking and works really well, though the script is almost totally awful. Again, though, Burton’s visual eye takes precedence over plot.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Another big ol’ creepy take on a traditionally happy time, this movie follows a jealous Tom Cruise as he attempts to have a dangerous sexual experience so he can feel equal to his wife, Nicole Kidman. However, this quickly becomes a paranoid nightmare as he witnesses a secret sex society and people start turning up dead. Stanley Kubrick’s final film exists in a New York City that looks far from real life (because it wasn’t filmed there) and has a dreamlike quality throughout, all the while giant Christmas trees and trips to the toy store surround the very troubling circumstances.

In Bruges (2008)

This is a movie that you probably never thought about taking place at Christmas, but it nevertheless does. Two Irish hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) are forced to take a trip to the “fairy tale” Belgian town of Bruges to hide out after a botched assassination. They bicker and do touristy things, but the locals are decorating for the holiday, and the woman who runs the inn in which they’re staying is trimming a tree during one scene. Their angry London mob boss, Ralph Fiennes, yells at his wife in front of their Christmas tree and kids. Despite these visuals, it almost never registers to me that it’s Christmastime, and that’s how you know it’s not important for the plot.

These were merely ten examples; there’s a whole lot more. Brazil, L.A. Confidential, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang all take place at Christmas but the holiday is secondary (if not tertiary) to the plot. So, when your mom wants to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time, why not suggest Batman Returns and Die Hard and make your cases thusly?

]]>http://nerdist.com/10-movies-that-take-place-at-christmas-for-no-reason/feed/13The Top 10 Best Recut Movie Trailershttp://nerdist.com/the-top-10-best-recut-movie-trailers/
http://nerdist.com/the-top-10-best-recut-movie-trailers/#commentsThu, 12 Sep 2013 13:00:08 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=89180You’ve seen the real films, now watch the films that they could have been. Family-friendly comedies transforms into nightmarish horror. Unsettling thrillers turn into lighthearted romps. Stanley Kubrick metamorphosizes into pretty much anything and everything else. Seriously, people love to recut Kubrick. Like NASA did with that moon landing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get punched in the face by Nerdist podcast guest Buzz Aldrin, so kindly direct your attention below at the cornucopia of recut creativity.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a modern day blockbuster

It’s difficult to imagine Monty Python’s 1975 magnum opus of medieval silliness as a modern day blockbuster, but YouTube’s Stéphane Bouley is never one to say die, or “Ni!” for that matter, and the result is this trailer that would be at home amidst the Oblivions and the Elysiums of the world.

Jaws as a Disney musical

In the most inspiring, feel-good tale of terrifying creatures with inconceivable singing talent since Susan Boyle, 1975’s classic Jaws gets a musical makeover from Italianoboyuk, turning it into a whale of a different tale. “$10,000 for me by myself. For that you get the head, the choreography, the whole damn American Idol championship!”

The Shining as a romantic comedy

This is a piece of vintage Internet right here, courtesy of neochosen. At seven years old, The Shining recut as a romantic comedy remains one of the single best recut trailers around, especially when the sweet strains of “Solsbury Hill” kick in.

Mrs. Doubtfire as a psychological thriller

There’s nothing inherently creepy about an estranged father wearing prosthetic makeup and a fat suit and pretend to be their new British nanny in order to get closer to them despite losing a custody battle, right? We didn’t think so either, at least if Robin Williams was involved. Peter Javidpour must have seen Williams at his creepiest in One Hour Photo and realized the truly spine-chilling potential that lay untapped in Mrs. Doubtfire.

2001: A Space Odyssey as a modern blockbuster

Speaking of Kubrick, didn’t you find yourself bored to tears by the boring ass strains of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra”? Film School Rejects did, so they added in the requisite wub-wub-wubstep that has come to define modern sci-fi/action movie trailers. “Wait for the drop? I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that.”

Back to the Future as a horror/thriller

In the original Back to the Future, Dr. Emmett Brown is a certified kook, to be sure, but he’s a lovable kook, like your weird uncle who tells you about his “Obama is a Freemason lizardman” conspiracy theories at Thanksgiving dinner. But if you tweak the film’s score and add in some terrifying quick cuts, Doc Brown transforms from absent-minded scientist to calculating, control freak killer powered by 1.21 jigawatts of pure terror. “Hey Chuck! This is Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you’re looking for? Well, listen to this! *bloodcurdling screams*”

The Ten Commandments as a teen comedy

No list would be complete without the sheer Moses-filled majesty of 10 Things I Hate About Commandments, a recut trailer that repurposes the classic 1954 Charlton Heston film The Ten Commandments into a raucous teen comedy.

The Terminator as a chick flick

Don’t let the goofy voiceover throw you – this heartfelt twist on Terminator gives Sarah Connor her most difficult choice yet: Does she get with her man, a time-traveling dreamboat, or a cybernetic murderbot designed only to love. This is a real Sophie’s Sarah’s choice and it’s only made better by the delightfully hammy soundtrack.

Full Metal Jacket as a feelgood movie

What is it about Stanley Kubrick films that just beg for enterprising YouTubers to recut and remix them? Dondrapersayswhat saw past R. Lee Ermey’s more colorful phrases and Kubrick’s ruminations on the futility of war to see Full Metal Jacket for what it really is, an inspirational The Blind Side-style tale of a man realizing his true potential thanks to the kindness of others.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as a horror film

To be perfectly honest, Willy Wonka is already pretty goddamn scary when you think about it. He’s like the X-Men villain Arcade, except his X-Men are children and his Murderworld is full of candy. And that psychedelic boat ride? Jesus Taffy Christ, that’s some unnerving stuff. Thankfully, Sabbz22 saw past its candy-coated family-friendly facade and reimagined the Gene Wilder classic as something far more sinister.

Secret eleventh video! Mary Poppins as a horror movie.

The recut trailer that kicked off this whole craze. We’re not putting this one on the official list because it’s in a class all by itself. A seriously scary class.

—

What are your favorite recut movie trailers? Let us know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter!

]]>http://nerdist.com/the-top-10-best-recut-movie-trailers/feed/23Genre of ’68 – “2001: A Space Odyssey”http://nerdist.com/genre-of-68-2001-a-space-odyssey/
http://nerdist.com/genre-of-68-2001-a-space-odyssey/#commentsThu, 01 Aug 2013 23:00:01 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=84547It’s some kind of understatement to merely say that 1968 was one of the most significant years for social and political change in the 20th Century, or at the very least the latter half. The idealism of the Eisenhower era had given way to the promise of John F. Kennedy, which in turn, through his assassination in 1963, led to an ever-increasing sense that things were not as shiny in America as we had once hoped. By the end of the decade, the Vietnam War was in full swing and unrest was at an all time high. Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were shot dead in 1968, and the youth of the nation were even more disaffected than before.

Still, in the midst of all this change, struggle, and strife, and likely because of it, movies were approaching their next renaissance. As we are now 45 years removed, we can see that 1968 was a banner year for cinema, and specifically genre pictures. Advances in storytelling techniques, tone, style, and visuals in science fiction, horror, action, and comedy took a huge leap forward. This series will take a look at five of the most culturally and cinematically significant films of all time, which just so happened to come out in ’68. For each film, we’ll examine their importance in terms of technology, filmic language, cultural impact, and continued resonance.

The films in question are Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Mel Brooks’ The Producers, Franklin J. Shaffner’s Planet of the Apes, and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. All of these are considered landmarks in their respective genres and for their respective filmmakers and are still, rightfully, being discussed today.

To start with, let’s go from the Dawn of Man to Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.

2001: A Space Odyssey

With the exception of John Williams’ score for Star Wars, and possibly Jerry Goldsmith’s theme to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, no music is more famously associated with science fiction cinema than that which opens Stanley Kubrick’s only foray into the genre, 2001: A Space Odyssey. That piece of music, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by German composer Richard Strauss, was certainly not written for scenes of spacecrafts or ape-men discovering weaponry. It was written in 1896 as a companion to Friedrich Nietzsche’s book of the same name, and its initial fanfare, “Sunrise,” was merely to suggest the dawning of a new day.

It’s this, though, that made the short snippet perfect for its three uses in the film. 2001 is about humanity reaching further apexes never before dreamed of, through the inspiration of some unknown extraterrestrial force. This music also became the theme for the Apollo space program, due in no small part to its use in this movie.

This is only the first of many ways in which 2001: A Space Odyssey revolutionized science fiction. Teaming with futurist author Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick set out to make the quintessential “good sci-fi movie,” and like most of what he did as a filmmaker, his take on any genre becomes one of its defining moments. Sci-fi movies had depicted space travel and alien contact since nearly the first days of moving pictures, but none had taken such care with its effects, or attempted such accuracy in the science. There is a reason for everything to exist and not just because it looks cool, though it most assuredly does. The ships have functionality beyond that which flying saucers or Commando Cody’s rockets ever did.

Kubrick was a fan of using existing music, especially that of contemporary and classical composers, in his films. It’s because of this movie that we now associate classical music with the floating grace of zero-gravity. Is it possible to listen to Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” an 1866 waltz about an Eastern European river, without thinking of swirly space stations and docking shuttlecrafts? I don’t think so. Aside from the music of the two Strausses, and another balletic piece by Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, the most pronounced pieces of music are the haunting and atonal works of Hungarian Gyӧrgy Ligeti. Four of his compositions are used in the film, usually to aurally represent the presence of the alien monolith. During the “Beyond the Infinite” section of the final act of the film, his music perfectly matches the far-out spacey optical effects through which astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) is traveling. Kubrick used Ligeti again on several other films, most notably in his 1980 horror masterpiece, The Shining.

As previously mentioned, the most memorable, and frankly still impressive, aspect of the film is its special and visual effects. Kubrick, along with Douglas Trumbull, Con Pedersen, and Tom Howard, totally revolutionized movie special effects, simply because, being a perfectionist, he felt like he couldn’t properly tell this story with the technology that already existed. He was the first director to use front projection with retroflective matting in a mainstream film. This was used for the “Dawn of Man” sequences to make it seem like the ape-men and animals were actually in the African wilderness. Nope, they’re inside a studio. Kubrick felt that typical painted backdrops or back projection looked too fake and wouldn’t serve his story well. He was so very right.

Models had been used for space in the past but never to this degree of detail or photorealism. Enormous scale models of the various spacecraft in the film were filmed using specially-designed cameras and carefully layered on top of shots of the background or lunar surface to create the effect of flight or movement. These techniques became the norm for space movies hereafter, inspiring everything from Trumbull’s own Silent Running in 1972 to George Lucas’ Star Wars films to all of the Star Trek films and Ridley Scott’s Alien. Literally, if you see a movie that depicts spaceships made post-1968, even with CGI today, it will be shot with at least some degree of aping from Stanley Kubrick.

The interior of the spacecrafts were also an enormous feat of ingenuity. To depict artificial gravity, Kubrick concocted a ship that would rotate 360 degrees at a speed that would induce centrifugal force and keep astronauts Bowman and Poole from floating around. A giant wheel-shaped set was constructed in two halves in MGM British Studios and various holes were built in for the camera to be placed. The first time we see him, Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) is running around the exterior of this wheel, apparently perpendicular to the ground. This was done by placing the camera on its side and fastening it to the wall while the hamster-wheel set was moving and Lockwood ran ostensibly in place. For the shots that follow Poole as he runs, the set rotated around the camera while Lockwood continued to jog.

For the film’s climactic “Star Gate” sequence, Kubrick employed an experimental slit-scan photographic technique which layered dozens of contrasting images of op-art paintings, architectural drawings, Moiré paintings, printed circuits and crystal structures. The various shots of nebulas and swirling celestial bodies were actually colored paints and chemicals inside a device called a “cloud tank,” shot in a dark room. It was for all of these truly outrageous and innovative techniques that Kubrick was awarded (very deservingly as well) his only personal Academy Award, for achievement in special photographic effects.

The story of 2001: A Space Odyssey is significant because it posits two very new-agey and radical ideas: 1) that at some point in our future, artificial intelligence will become indistinguishable from human intelligence and will put its own continued existence above that of the humanity that created it and 2), possibly more controversially, that the assistance of extraterrestrial influence gave humanity its edge over the rest of nature. This type of thinking was relatively new at the time and called into question a fair amount of what people held, and still hold, true about the place of humanity.

Many, many films have warned of technology overtaking mankind, but this was the first time it was shown to be so cold and yet so paranoid, so human and so inhuman at the same time. Futurists in the years hence have postulated that we’re getting ever-nearer to the Singularity, wherein our existence will be completely technology-based and our physical forms will cease to have purpose. HAL-9000, while not a human, is omnipresent within the ship and conniving and scared of its own demise. It’s about as close to being a human mind as any computer mind could be.

As for the aliens-as-creator theory, there have been many books and films that have proposed this, and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus goes so far as to say we were genetically modified from alien parentage. 2001, on the other hand, says that it wasn’t a divine plan but more, through the placement of the monoliths, a means of helping existing creatures eventually reach their next evolutionary stage. Naturally, ideas like this were not met with a whole lot of welcome in some circles. Kubrick, ever thoughtful and willing to engage in intellectual debate, said in response to criticism about these themes, “In an infinite and eternal universe, the point is, anything is possible.”

In 1968, we hadn’t yet landed on the moon, and so Kubrick was taking a lot of leaps with how far we’d get and what we’d know by the year 2001. The way the Earth looks from space in the film is different from how we now know it to look. Kubrick took an educated guess. How was he to know it would look more blue than green? In 1968, given how quickly the space program had progressed, it would have been totally plausible for humanity to live at least partially in outer space and for regular flights to the moon to be commonplace. It was 33 years later, after all. But Kubrick and Clarke couldn’t have known that once it became clear the Russians weren’t going to beat us in the race to the moon, nor would they ever, probably, America’s interest in continued spaceflight began to dwindle. The 2001 of 2001 was the 1960s view of the future, which we have greatly surpassed in some areas and have sadly never reached in others.

The film was very challenging for some viewers, and as such, MGM feared it wouldn’t fare all that well at the box office. It was decided to give the movie a rolling roadshow release, meaning it would travel from city to city instead of prints being available everywhere at once. Often projected in Cinerama, the exhibition method wherein three projectors each flash a third of the movie frame onto an overhead dome screen, 2001: A Space Odyssey became an event built up by word of mouth. Young people flocked to the movie in huge numbers, often after or during the usage of certain substances. This led to a slight alteration in marketing, going from posters depicting painted images of the space and technology from the film along with slogan like “An epic drama of adventure and exploration,” to the now-famous image of the Star Child from the film’s final shot with the words “The Ultimate Trip.” 2001 was a slow but undeniable hit, eventually grossing over $68 million dollars and making it the highest-earning movie of 1968.

This essay merely skirts the surface of why 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most influential films of all time, and certainly in the top two or three of all science fiction films. It took special effects photography to new and exciting places that were to be built upon by other filmmakers later. It had innovative uses of existing orchestral music to create the sense of awe and majesty in space. It touched upon ideas and themes that were radical at the time and still being debated today. And its method of distribution made it a must-see film for people across the United States for a long while after. While hard to say which of Stanley Kubrick’s 13 films is his absolute best, with several being the pinnacle of their respective genre or type, 2001: A Space Odyssey is far and away his most wondrous, and makes the viewer long for the future we might have had.

]]>http://nerdist.com/genre-of-68-2001-a-space-odyssey/feed/10“David Mack au Milieu des Fauves”http://nerdist.com/david-mack-au-millieu-des-fauves/
http://nerdist.com/david-mack-au-millieu-des-fauves/#commentsTue, 28 Feb 2012 23:13:47 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=39757In 1903 an annual event in Paris began, the basis of which was a reaction to the status quo of neo-classical European art. The Salon D’ Automne became a showcase of innovation and a fountain of inspiration, and then, in 1905, came the beasts.

Bubbling up as a whiplash against the Impressionists, the Fauvists left a wake of saturated color and untethered brush strokes. “Les Fauves” is French for “wild beasts,” and this loose group of painters, led by Henri Matisse, were indeed that exotic. Snowflakes to Africans, peacocks to Inuit, the incongruity of their style in context to Representationalism and traditional modes of perception was so vast and new that it is hard to imagine. The kinetic brushstrokes and dissonant colors put it outside of nature, opening the doors to further abstraction that would lead to Cubism and eventually Abstract Expressionism.

Much like any movement of art, the wonderful world of comics is based in tradition, and, stylistically, it moves in slow, seismic shifts. As illustrated above, there does come a time when everything must make a giant evolutionary leap; Jack Kirby needed to be the Neanderthal from 2001 that threw the bone that shattered what people thought comics could be. Neal Adams, George Perez, Jim Lee; All of these artists made a giant leap that created a foothold from which the next generation of artists could grow. However, these steps, as profound as they are, all fall in the same lineage of panel-to-panel line work. Expressionism had leaked slightly into the milieu; Bill Sienkiewicz and Kent Williams both played with idea of color, form, and process in mainstream superhero comics, and, later, Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith molded the malleable clay of comics to their vision… but there is only one wild beast.

David Mack is truly unique in the industry, changing very fundamentally the way stories are told and illustrated in the medium. Color, typography, composition, technique — for him, none of these are hallowed ground. And, by disregarding the conventions that have preceded him, Mack has been able to elevate the format, creating comic books that reflect him rather than the other way around.

The first chance we had to peek into Mack’s head was with the publication of his first book, Kabuki: Circle of Blood. The story of the Japanese assassin, Ukiko, takes place as much in the exterior world as it does in her interior world. Mack utilizes a seemingly disparate array of techniques to convey Ukiko’s piecing together of her fractured psyche. That inner sanctum, that safe place amid the wreckage of life and circumstance — that’s Mack’s playground. Colors and textures slowly explode, then coalesce into forms like clouds on a Spring day; Shapes come in and out focus, slowly guiding us through a not always tangible narrative. Another tool heavily used is collage, as a visual metaphor that reinforces the character’s battle of flesh and mind, experience, and imagination, that secret language that we use to rationalize, remind, and remember. Using everything at his disposal, he is able to piece the story together for us at the most gingerly of speeds, letting us savor the narrative as we would a fine meal. Reminiscent of legendary outside artist Henry Darger, Mack is able to create these vibrant worlds that are safe harbors for his feminine side. Much like Darger’s Vivian girls, Mack’s assassins’ struggle against oppression and external control. These yarns they spin and the tales they illustrate seem to be an external manifestation of an internal struggle between the male and the female, the assassin and the civilian, the ideal and the real… this tension leads to a brilliant juxtaposition of styles and colors that few can duplicate.

Some of Mack’s most recent bodies of work tackle two pop culture figures that allow him to continue investigating characters whose internal world must control their external world. Marvel Comic’s Daredevil has been a huge breeding ground for Mack’s innovation. The adventures of the blind Matt Murdock and his super senses have been groundbreaking under David Mack’s guidance; he, along with writer Brian Michael Bendis, has created some of the most bravura issues to date.

More recently, Mack has added to the mythology of Dexter Morgan, America’s serial killing sweetheart. Creating a series of motion comics with Bill Sienkiewicz that illustrate the “early cuts” of Dexter’s darker half, Mack is once again illustrating the inner turmoil of someone whose actions are not always indicative of his thoughts.

There is much Mack magick on the horizon: This summer will bring a new Daredevil story arc, more Dexter “Early Cuts’ available at Showtime On Demand, and the just completed illustrations for a Neil Gaiman poem. It is hoped that this wild beast will roam the pages of comic books for years to come and continue to dazzle us with his unprecedented brilliance.

If you were able to teleport yourself and materialize in an intersection that happened to be where “2001”, “Barbarella”, and “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” met, you would be immediately confronted with a larger than life woman made entirely of silicone. Don’t fret, and don’t pull out your phaser; she means you no harm… you simply have arrived in the magical world of Colin Christian’s creations.

It was a balmy, sticky night in Miami the first time I was to make the acquaintance of one of Colin’s magnificent ladies. If you asked me now, I wouldn’t for the life of me be able to tell you her name, but I was bowled over by her sumptuous curves and her exaggerated proportions and immediately smitten to say the least. In town showing at Art Basel, the largest art fair in North America, I was on foreign ground, and behind these good women was a humble, gracious man who made me feel right at home. Needless to say, Colin and I have been friends since day 1.

Colin is a British transplant who grew up in the shadows of Stanley Kubrick and the smooth, spartan details of retro-futurism. His work is saturated with pop culture and drenched in sexuality. Straddling the line of fine art and design, Colin’s work is a commentary on all of the above. Whether they are adorning the stage of Kanye West’s last tour or occupying a spot in Nike CEO Mark Parker’s vaunted collection, they are right at home. His sculptures are rooted in the conventions of anime, and are akin to Murakami’s “Superflat” art movement which refers to the “flattening” of various forms of Japanese graphic art, pop culture, and fine art, for which he indeed does have an affinity. “The lines and shapes really make sense to me” Colin says, and they lend themselves in a greater way to marrying the form with function, as in the “furniture” of Allen Jones whose work is most notable for being the influence of the tables and chairs inside of the Korova Milkbar from “Clockwork Orange”. Incidentally, Christian will be introducing a line of furniture based on pollen and undersea life soon, which will bring an added dimension of functionality to his work.

A hopeful idealist, the women of Colin’s armada are the amalgams of the many beautiful icons that he grew up worshiping, sanded and painted to a shiny perfection to match the streamlined clothing and provocative space gear that adorn his ladies. Though one could dismiss the work as being too sexy or kitschy, these sculptures embody what it’s like to be a child, to see the world as a beautiful shiny egg to crack, one where sexuality, cooperation, and advancement are not hindered by closed mindedness or cynicism; basking in the embryonic glow of cinema and television has allowed Colin to create a 3-dimensional manifestation of how he sees, or hopes to see where technology, art, and science can take us. “As a species we must embrace technology in the right way, and leave this planet… When we leave our genitals will come with us, eventually spacesuits will get sexier.”

"Capsule (group)" Colin Christian

Colin’s self described “Futuristic Sexy Optimistic” art finds him embracing the evolution of his work and letting it grow and flourish in many ways, exploring his world beyond just his lovely ladies and allowing us to peek further inside his brain with every new piece. He is currently at work on a new show for the Opera Gallery in NY opening February ‘11 with his wife Sas, a gifted painter in her own right, you can see more of his (inter) stellarwork at: www.colinchristian.com.